G4 - Feature - Star Crash: The Greatest Sci-Fi B-Movie of All-Time?

Star Crash: The Greatest Sci-Fi B-Movie of All-Time?

written by Frank Meyer on Friday, September 03, 2004

Cinematech’s latest episode, "Futuristic Battleground," inspired me to the think of some of my favorite sci-fi space battle movies of all time. Of course, we all know the obvious choices, the original Star Wars trilogy, Star Trek: Wrath of Kahn… and…well, geez, are there any others? But one flick that you likely do not remember, and should, is the great B-movie Star Crash.

Starring a young David Hasslehoff, child-evangelist-turned-bad-actor Marjoe Gortner, Maniac/Taxi Driver star Joe Spinell, the great Christopher Plummer, a talking robot from Texas named Robot L, and scream queen Caroline Munro as Stella Star, Star Crash is the among best (and by best, I mean worst, and therefore best) of the post-Star Wars ripoffs. The plot involves an evil overlord who seeks to overthrow the benign Emperor using a super-weapon that drives its victims insane before it kills them. Busty heroine Stella Starr and her super-powered friend Akton are interstellar mercenaries on the run who are captured by the Empire. Accompanied by Robot L, they are forced to go on a search-and-rescue mission to find the Emperor's missing son, a Southern-accented automaton assigned to help them. They survive an attack of the super-weapon, locate the son (Hasselhoff), and, with the help of the Emperor himself (Plummer), escape a death trap sprung by the evil overlord Akton (Gortner). Now Stella must help the Emperor and his son attack Akton’s hand-shaped space station, which houses his lava-lamp-looking ultimate weapon, before an entire space city is destroyed! Wow!

Director Luigi Cozzi went on to make a movie arguably worse (and therefore, in this case, possibly better) than Star Crash in the form of Hercules, starring Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk TV series) and hot b-movie vixen Sybil Danning. Hercules remains the only movie I have ever walked out on in my life, and I was only 12!!! My exit came about the time that Ferrigno’s Hercules threw an attacking bear into outer space. The shot of that plastic bear hurtling by a blue-screen earth as the superimposed Gods watched on is burned in my memory forever.

The effects are terrible, the sets cardboard-looking, the acting unbelievably bad, and the plot laughable. All of which make this one of the more enjoyable bad movies of all time. I couldn’t recommend it more. Star Crash was recently released on DVD and is sooooo worth picking up.

In the immortal words of the Emperor: "Once again, the stars are clear. Oh, some dark power may someday once again rear its evil head. But for now...we can rest."

Learn more about Star Crash at these fine sites: